


PS 3511 
.115 
T86 
Copy 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




00000^0327^ 



© 




GopyrigM?. 



COFYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TWELVE JAPANESE PAINTERS 




NOV S2I9I5 



©CU41BBfcT 

■ I 



PS 35' 




Copyright 1913 
Arthur Davison Ficke 



The Ralph Fletcher Seymour Company 
Fine Arts Building Chicago 



The Ukioye School of Japanese painting, best 
known of all Japanese schools, but still too little 
known, is the theme of this group of poems. It 
were too much to hope that, through them, any 
new lover could be led to these remarkable paint- 
ings and prints ; but at least a few old lovers may 
be interested to examine an attempt at voicing cer- 
tain impressions which these works produce in all 
who are familiar with them. 

For the cover-design of this volume, the author 
is deeply indebted to Mr. Frederick W. Gookin. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/twelvejapanesepaOOfick 



PROLOGUE 

As chosen guests ye may partake 
Of this strange hostel's ancient wine. 
For thirst no common drink can slake, 
Tapsters of lineage divine 
Here pour sweet anodyne. 

The hurly-burly of the road, 
The turmoil of the carters' feet, 
Intrude not to this still abode 
Where travelers from the world-ends meet, 
And find the gathering sweet. 

Hence may perhaps some secret gleam 
Follow along our onward way, 
From evening feast with lords of dream, 
As we go forth into the gray 
Tomorrow's cloudy day. 



CONTENTS. 

Prologue 3 

Figure of a Girl by Harunobu 7 

Koriusai Speaks 11 

Portrait of an Actor in Tragic role by Shunsho. . 13 

Festival Scene by Kiyonaga 15 

Dramatic Portrait by Sharaku 17 

Group of Women by Shuncho 19 

Two Women by Kitao Masanobu 21 

Portrait of a Woman by Yeishi 23 

Landscape by Hiroshige 27 

The Pupil of Toyokuni 29 

Landscape by Hokusai 33 

A Group of Ladies by Toyohiro 35 

Portrait of a Woman by Utamaro 37 

The Birds and Flowers of Hiroshige 41 

The Landscapes of Hiroshige 43 

Epilogue 47 



TWELVE JAPANESE PAINTERS 



FIGUREOFACIRL 
BYHARUNOBU 




THAT somewhere in 
the West, — 

In gulfs of sunset, isles 
of rest, — 

Rise dewy from pre- 
natal sleep 

To strew with little 
waves the deep, — 

Surely it is your breath 
that stirs 

These fluttering gauzy 
robes of hers! 



Come whence ye may, I marvel not 
That ye are lured to seek this spot : 
Your tenuous scarcely-breathed powers 
Sway not the sturdier garden-flowers, 
And had unmanifest gone by — 
Save that she feels them visibly. 

O little winds, her little hands 
In time with tunes from faery-lands 
Are moving; and her bended head 
Knows nothing of the long years sped 
Since heaven more near to earth was hung, 
And gods lived, and the world was young. 

Her inner robe, of tenderest fawn, 
In cool faint fountains of the dawn 
Was dyed ; and her long outer dress 
Borrows its luminous loveliness 
From some clear bowl with water filled 
In which one drop of wine was spilled. 

Peace folds her in its deeps profound ; 
Her shy glance lifts not from the ground ; 
And through this garden's still retreat 
She moves with tripping silver feet 
Whose tranced grace, where'er she strays, 
Turns all the days to holy days. 

Hers is the boon of manifold 
Small joys that never can grow old. 
Though her poised head and quiet eye 
The mood of these light steps deny, 
It is, the playful solemn art 
Of childhood innocence of heart. 



Come! let us softly steal away. 
For what can we, whose hearts are gray, 
Bring to her dreaming paradise? 
A chill shall mock her from our eyes ; 
A cloud shall dim this radiant air: 
Come! for our world is otherwhere. 

But O ye little winds that blow 
From golden islands long ago 
Lost to our searching in the deep 
Of dreams between the shores of sleep, — 
Ye shall her happy playmates be, 
Fluttering her robes invisibly. 



II 

KORIUSAI SPEAKS 

Let whoso will take sheets as wide 
As some great wrestler's mountain-back : 
Space will not hide 
His lack. 

Take thou the panel, being strong. 
'Tis as a girl's arm fashioned right, — 
As slender and divinely long 
And white. 



That tall and narrow icy space 
Gives scope for all the brush beseems. 
And who shall ask a wider place 
For dreams? 



It is an isle amid the tide, — 
A chink wherethrough shines one lone star,- 
A cell where calms of heaven hide 
Afar. 

One chosen curve of beauty wooed 
From out the harsh chaotic world 
Shall there in solitude 
Be furled. 

The narrow door shall be so strait 
Life cannot vex, with troubled din, 
Beauty, beyond that secret gate 
Shut in. 

11 



Lo! I will draw two lovers there, 
Alone amid their April hours, 

With lines as drooping and as fair 
As flowers. 

I will make Spring to circle them 
Like a faint aureole of delight. 

Their luminous youth and joy shall stem 
The night. 

And men shall say — Behold ! he chose, 
From Time's wild welter round him strown, 
This hour; and paid for its repose 
His own. 



12 



Ill 



PORTRAIT OF AN ACTOR IN TRAGIC ROLE 
BY SHUNSHO 

His soul is a sword ; 
His sword with the spirit's breath 
Is bathed of its terrible lord, 
In whose eyes is death. 

And the massive control, 
And the lighted implacable eye 
Leash a fierce and exalted soul 
Of dark destiny. 



With the strength of the hills, — 
Kiso's iron mountains of snow, — 
He waits: time brings and fulfills 
The hour for the blow. 

He waits; and the white 
Full robes round his shoulders sway, 
With woof of pale orange alight, 
Pale green, pale gray. 

Like a falcon, flown 
To bleak mid-regions of sky, 
He poises. One image alone 
Holds his sinster eye, — 

A vision, a prey 
Toward which he shall soon be hurled ;- 
And his fury shall darken the day, 
And his joy, the world. 



13 



A music enfolds him 
Like the thunders that are poured 
Across heaven ; it holds him 
With the song of the sword. 

It enthralls, it inspires, 
And its zenith shall be 
Lightning of unleashed desires 
Crashing along the sea. 



14 



IV 

FESTIVAL SCENE BY KIYONAGA 

What gods are these, reborn from gracious days 
To fill our gardens with diviner mould 
Than therein dwelling? What bright race of old 
Revisits here one hour our mortal ways? 
Serene, dispassionate, with lordly gaze 
They move through this clear afternoon of gold, 
Equal to life and all its deeps may hold, 
Calm, spacious masters of the glimmering maze. 

What gods are these? or godlike men? whom 
earth 
Suffices, in a wisdom just and high 
That not repines the boundaries of its birth 
But fills its destined measure utterly — 
Finding in mortal sweetness perfect worth, 
Not yet grown homesick for the wastes of sky. 



15 



DRAMATIC PORTRAIT BY SHARAKU 

Whence art thou come, 
Tall figure clasping to thy tragic breast 

Thy orange robe, a flame amid the gloom — 

By what wild doom 
Art thou forever onward, onward pressed? 

A wreath is on thy brow, — 
A crown of leafage from some lonely haunt 

Where might Medea's shade brood ministrant. 

Thy shoulders bow 
Beneath what fearful weight, what need, what vow? 

A leopard fierce — 
A ghost that wanders down the wandering wind — 

A fury tracking toward some shaken mind, — 

Where shall I find 
The divination that thy veil shall pierce? 

How shall I wrest 
From thee the secret of thy lofty doom — 

From what wild gulf of midnight thou dost come 

Who, with clutched breast, 
Stalkest forever onward, — onward pressed? 



17 



VI 



GROUP OF WOMEN BY SHUNCHO 

Your lovely ladies shall not fade 
Though Yedo's moated walls be laid 
Level with dust, and night-owls brood 
Over the city's solitude. 
Far be the coming of that day ! 
Yet that in comes not, who shall say? 
Who knows how long the halls shall stand 
Of your once-golden wonderland? 
Perhaps shall Nikko crumble down, 
Its carvings worn, its glow turned brown 
Through many winters. On that hill 
Where great Ieyasu's brazen will 
In brazen tomb now takes its rest, 
Perhaps the eagle's young shall nest. 
Kyoto's gardens cannot last. 
At Kamakura, where the vast 
Form of the Buddha fronts the sea, 
A waste of waves may someday be ... . 

Ah, stale and flat the warning bell 
Whose melancholy accents tell 
Impermanence to hearts that guess 
Time's undiscovered loveliness. 
A fairer Yedo shall arise ; 
A richer Nikko praise the skies; 
Ieyasus mightier than of old 
Shall cast the world in wiser mould ; 
Fresh gardens shall be spread; new faith 
Shall spring when Buddha is a wraith ; — 
And more puissant hands than yours 
Shall paint anew life's ancient lures. 
Yet when he comes who shall surpass 

19 



Your beauty that so matchless was, 

A joy shall light him through your eyes, 

A flame shall from your embers rise, 

Your gentle art shall make him wise 

In mastery of melodies. — 

And though your wreath in dust be laid, 

Your lovely ladies shall not fade! 



20 



VII 

TWO WOMEN BY KITAO MASANOBU. 

What floors have ye trod? What sky-paven 
places have opened their halls to your eyes? 

What light was yours, through summerward spaces 
watching the swallow that flies? 

What holy silence has touched your faces — what 
hush of paradise? 

I think that he died of a longing unspoken who 
dreamed you to walk in our ways. 

The wheel at the cistern, the pitcher is broken: ye 
wot not that dust decays — 

Ye, torn from the heart of the dreamer as token to 
dreamers of other days. 



21 



VIII 

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN BY YEISHI 

I 

Out of the silence of dead years 
Your slender presence seems to move — 
A fragrance that no time outwears — 
A perilous messenger of love. 

From far, your wistful beauty brings 
A wonder that no lips may speak, — 
A music dumb save as it clings 
About your shadowy throat and cheek. 

Longing is round you like that haze 
Of luminous and tender glow 
Which memory in the later days 
Gives vanished days of long ago. 

And he who sees you must retrace 
All sweetness that his life has known, 
And with the vision of your face 
Link some lost vision of his own. 

The long curves of your saffron dress, — 
The outline of your delicate mould, — 
Your strange unearthly slenderness 
Seem like a wraith's that strayed of old 

Out of some region where abide 
Fortunate spirits without stain, 
Where nothing lovely is denied, 
And pain is only beauty's pain. 

23 



II 

Strange ! that in life you were a thing 
Common to many for delight, 
Thrall to the revelries that fling 
Their gleam across the fevered night: — 

A holy image in the grasp 
Of pagans careless to adore ; 
A pearl secreted in the clasp 
Of oozy weeds on some lost shore. 

My thought shrinks back from what I see 
And wanders dumb in poisoned air — 
Then leaps, inexplicably free, 
Remembering that you were fair! 

Ill 

Beloved were you in your prime 
By one, of all, who came as guest,— 
A wastrel strange, whose gaze could climb 
To where your beauty lit the west. 

One, — in whose secret heart there moved 
Some far and unforgotten stir 
Of ancient holy beauties loved, — 
Here paused, a sudden worshiper. 

Methinks he moved in dusks apart 
Through that profound and trembling hour 
When you within his doubting heart 
Touched all the desert into flower. 

And where you rose a world's delight, 
For him the dark veils from you fell, — 
As earthly clouds from star-strewn night 
Withdraw, and leave a miracle. 

24 



Not Oiran then, but maid ; remote 
From tyrant powers of waste desire. 
Who drew these hands, this slender throat, 
Saw you mid shaken winds of fire. 

You were a shape of wonder, set 
To crown the seeking of his days. 
For you his lonely eyes were wet; 
With you his soul walked shrouded ways. 

And though the burning night might keep 
You servient to some lord's carouse, 
For him you rose from such a deep 
With maiden dawn-light on your brows. 

IV 

Pale Autumn with ethereal glow 
Hovered your delicate figure near; 
And ever round you whispered low 
Her voices, and the dying year. 

A year, — a day, — and then the leaves 
Purpureal, ashen, umber, red, 
Wove for you both through waning eves 
A gorgeous carpet gloomward spread. 

And with that waning, you had gone, 
Through changes that love fears to trace — 
No later lover could have known 
Your wistful and alluring face — 

Your music, quivering in thin air, 
Had fled with life that filled your veins — 
But he for whom you were so fair 
Dreamed ; and the troubled dream remains. 

25 



V 

Time, that is swift to smite and rend 
The common things that spring from earth, 
Dares not so surely set an end 
To shapes of visionary birth. 

There often his destroying touch 
Lingers as with a lulled caress, 
Adding, to that which has so much, 
An alien ghostly loveliness. 

So shall your beauty, crescent, pass 
From me through many a later hand, 
Each year more luminous than it was — 
O April out of Sunset Land! 



26 



IX 

LANDSCAPE BY HIROSHIGE 
(The Bow-Moon) 

Where the torrent leaps and falls, 
And the hanging cliffs look down, — 
Cloven gray and ruddy walls, 
Each with ragged forest-crown, — 

There across the chasmed deep 
Spans a gossamer bridge on high; 
And below, from gulfs of sleep, 
Mounts the Bow-Moon up the sky. 

Blue dusk, thickening whence she rose, 
Her abysses veils; above 
Moves she into daylight's close 
As faint strains of music move. 

On the eastern slope her feet, — 
White, in tranced ecstasy, — 
Climb, a ghost of heaven, so sweet 
That the spent day cannot die. 

Walled by crags on either side 
Glimmers forth her figure wan, 
Straying like some lonely bride 
Through the halls of Kubla Khan. 

Pilgrim of the riven deep! 
Wheresoe'er thy lover lie, 
Sleep to him is troubled sleep 
While his Bow-Moon haunts the sky. 



27 



X 



THE PUPIL OF TOYOKUNI 

I walk the crowded Yedo streets. 
And everywhere one question greets 
My passing, as the strollers say — 
"How goes the Master's work today? 
We saw him sketching hard last night 
At Ryogoku, where the bright 
Trails of the rockets lit the air. 
You should have seen the ladies there! 
All the most famous of the town 
In gorgeous robes walked up and down 
The long bridge-span, well knowing he 
Was there to draw them gorgeously. 
I'm sure he'll give us something fine, — 
Dark splendid figures, lights ashine, 
A great procession of our best 
And costliest Oiran, with the West 
Burning behind them. When it's done, 
Pray, of the copies, save me one." 



Yes, I am pupil to the great. 
How well he bears his famous state ! 
With what superbness he fulfills 
The multitude's delighted wills, 
Giving them, at their eager call, 
Each play and feast and festival 
Drawn with a rich magnificence: 
And they come flocking with their pence 
To buy his sheets whose supple power 
Captures the plaudits of the hour, — 
Till even Utamaro's eyes 
Turn, kindled with swift jealousies. 

29 



Strange! that before this crowded shrine 
One voice is lacking, and that mine, — 
I, learner in his lordly house,— 
I, on whose cold unwilling brows 
The lights of his strong glory burn 
Blinding my heart that needs must yearn 
Far from the measure of his state, — 
I, liegeman to another fate. 
Would that some blindness came on me 
That I might cease one hour to see 
For all his high, ambitious will 

His is a peasant's nature still 

What utter madness that my thought 
Weighs him, — I who am less than naught! 
Where he walks boldly, there I creep. 
Where his assured long brush-strokes sweep 
Unhesitant, there I falter, strain 
With agony, — perhaps in vain, — 
For some more subtly curving line, 
Some musical poising of design 
That shall at last, at last express 
My frailer glimpse of loveliness. 
And yet, for all his facile art, 
I hug my impotence to my heart. 
For there are things his marching mind 
In steady labors day by day 
With all its sight shall never find, 
With all its craft can never say. 
There are lights along the dusky street 
That his bold eyes have never caught; 
There are tones more luminous, more sweet 
Than any that his hopes have sought. 
There are torturing lines that curve and fall 
Like dying echoes musical, 
Or twine and lace and bend and roll 
In labyrinths to lure my soul. 
His ladies sumptuous and rare 
30 



Move princess-like in proud design 

Of glowing loveliness: but where 

His bannered pomps and pageants shine, 

I feel a stiller, rarer peace, 

A cadence breathless, slender, lone. 

And where his facile brush-strokes cease 

Begins the realm that is my own. 

I wander lonely by fields and streams. 
I lie in wait for lingering dreams 
That brood, a tender-lighted haze 
Down the wide space of ending days, — 
A secret thrill that hovering flies 
Round some tall form, some wistful eyes, 
Some thin branch where the Spring is green,- 
A whisper heard, a light half-seen 
By lonely wanderers abroad 
In crowded streets or solitude 
Of hills, — to haunt with dim unrest 
The empty chambers of the breast. 

Perhaps some day a heart shall come, 
Like me half-blind, like me half-dumb, 
Like me contentless with the clear 
Sunlighted beauties men hold dear. 
Perhaps he shall more greatly prize 
My faltered whispers from afar 
Than all the Master's pageantries 
And confident pomp and press and jar. 
Yet, well or ill, how shall I change 
The measure doled, the nature given? 
Mine is the thirst for far and strange 
Echoes of a forgotten heaven. 
I listen for the ghosts of sound; 
Remote I watch life's eager stream; 
Through wastes afar, through gulfs profound, 
I, Toyohiro, seek my dream. 

31 



XI. 

LANDSCAPE BY HOKUSAI. 
(The Wave at Kanazawa.) 

Because thou wast marvelous of eye, magic of 

fancy, lithe of hand, — 
Because thou didst play o'er many a gulf where 

common mortals dizzy stand, — 
Because no thing in earth or sky escaped the pry- 

ings of thine art, — 
I call thee, who wast master of all, the master with 

the monkey's heart. 

Where in the street the drunkards roll, — where 

in the ring the wrestlers sway, — 
Where rustics pound the harvest rice, or fishers sail, 

or abbots pray, — 
In rocky gorge, or lowland field, or winter heights 

of mountain air, — 
Wherever man or beast or bird or flower finds 

place, — yea, everywhere, 
Thou standest, as I fancy, rapt in the live play of 

mass and line, 
Curiously noting every poise ; and in that ugly head 

of thine 
Storing it with unsated fierce passion for life's min- 
utest part, 
Some day to use infallibly, — O master with the 

monkey's heart! 

Where Kanazawa's thundering shores behold the 
mounded waters rave, 
And Fuji looms above the plain, and the plain 
slopes to meet the wave, — 

33 



There didst thou from the trembling sands un- 
leash thy soul in sudden flight 

To soar above the whirling waste with awe and 
wonder and delight. 

Thou sawest the giant tumult poured; each slope 
and chasm of cloven brine 

Called thee ; and from the scattered rout one vision 
did thy sight divine — 

One heaven-affronting whelming wave in which all 
common waves have part — 

A billow from the wrath of God, — O monkey with 
a master's heart! 

What mind shall span thee? Who shall praise 
or blame thy world-embracing sight 

Whose harvest was each rock and wraith, each form 
of loathing or of light? 

Though we should puzzle all our days, we shall not 
know thee as thou art, 

Nor where the seer of visions ends, nor where be- 
gins the monkey's heart. 



34 



XII. 

A GROUP OF LADIES BY TOYOHIRO. 

O careless passer, — O look deep! 
These forms from near the sea of sleep 
Come hither: on each forehead gleams 
The phosphorescent spray of dreams. 
They have sailed in from lonely seas, 
Cloaked in a haze of mysteries; 
And hither by a lord are led 
Who snared them, pale himself with dread, 
Upon the very shores of sleep. 
O careless passer-by, look deep! 



35 



XIII. 

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN BY UTAMARO 

I 

In robes like clouds at sunset rolled 
About the dying sun, — 
In splendid vesture of purple and gold 
That a thousand toiling days have spun 
For thee, O imperial one! — 

With the cunning pomp of the later years, 
With their pride and glory and stress, 
Thou risest; and thy calm forehead bears 
These like a crown; but thy frail mouth wears 
All of their weariness. 

Thou art one of the great, who mayest stand 
Where Cleopatra stood, 
Aspasia, Rhodope, at each hand; 
And even the proud tempestuous mood 
Of Sappho shall rule thy blood. 

Thy throat, in its slender whiteness bare, 
Seems powerless to sustain 

The gorgeous tower of thy gold-decked hair, — 
Like a lily's stem which the autumn air 
Maketh to shrink and wane. 

More haunting music, more luring love 
Round thy sinuous form hold sway 
Than the daughters of earth have knowledge of; 
For thou art the daughter of fading day, 
Touched with all hope's decay. 

37 



And the subtle languor, the prismic glow 
Of a ripeness overpast 

Burns through the wonderful curving flow 
Of thy garments ; and they who love thee know 
A loathing at the last. 

For they are the lovers of living things, — 
Stars, sunlight, morning's breath; 
But thou, for all that thy beauty brings 
Such songs as the Summer scattereth, — 
Thou art of the House of Death. 

II 

But there was one, in thy golden day, 
Who saw thy poppied bloom, 
And loved not thee but the heart's decay 
That filled thee; and clasped it to be alway 
His chosen and sealed doom. 

He who this living portrait wrought, 
Outlasting time's control, 
A dark and bitter nectar sought 
Welling from poisoned streams that roll 
Through deserts of the soul ...... 

Ill 

Ah dreamer! come at last where dreams 
Can serve no more thy need, 
Who hast by such bright silver streams 
Walked with thy soul that now earth seems 
A waste where love must bleed, — 

Thou whom such matchless beauty filled 
Of visions frail and lone, — 
For thee all passion now is stilled; 
Thy heart, denied the life it willed, 
Desireth rather none. 

38 



And thee allure no verdant blooms 
That with fresh joy suspire; 
But blossoms touched with coming glooms, 
And weariness, and spent desire, 
Draw to thy spirit nigher. 

Wherefore is nothing in thy sight 
Propitious save it be 

Brushed with the wings of hovering night, 
Worn with the shadow of delight, 
Sad with satiety. 

For thou hast enmity toward all 
The servants of life's breath ; 
One mistress holdeth thee in thrall, 
And them thou lovest who her call 
Answer; and she is Death. 

IV 

Now Death thy ruined city's streets 
Walketh, a grisly queen. 
And there Her sacred horror greets 
Him who invades these waste retreats, 
Her sacrosanct demesne, — 

In robes like clouds at sunset rolled 
About the dying sun, 
In splendid vestments of purple and gold 
That a thousand perished years have spun 
For Her, the Imperial One. 



39 



XIV 

THE BIRDS AND FLOWERS OF HIROSHIGE 

Alilt against the emerald sky, 
A tiny violet songster swings, 
Clutching a branch, in ecstasy 
Of light and height and skiey things. 
Singing, he swings; and swinging, I 
For once am showered with joy of wings. 

Keen and pure, of a magic power, 
Thy rapture stirs what was never stirred. 
Thou hast brought to earth a cloudland dower, — 
The joy of the small sweet singing bird. 
All time is richer for thy hour 
Of delicate music, gravely heard. 

Does the iris droop beneath the heat? 
Its weariness finds voice in thee. 
Does the pheasant run with snow-clogged feet? 
Winter is theirs who thy vision see. 
Is summer's glow to the swallow sweet? 
Thou hast captured its summer eternally. 

Thou hast wrought each as a lyric note 
Pure with one mood of sky and trees 
And flowers, and tiny lives that float 
Or dart or poise in world of these. 
The painter's hand, the thrush's throat, — 
Which masters best these melodies? 

Gusty rain through the treetops blown 
And a bird that scuds where the gray gusts hiss, — 
Sapphire wings and a golden crown 
Flung skyward in unconscious bliss — 
No rare enchanted bird has known 
As thou hast known the savor of this! 

41 



And winning it, thou hast cast aside 
Thy native bonds of mortal birth, — 
Flinging the spirit-pinions wide 
Above this world of weary worth, — 
To float and poise and skyward ride 
With them whose realm is not the earth. — 

The peacock in his proud repose — 
Wild-geese that rush across the moon — 
The little sleepy owl that knows 
The wind-among-the-tree-tops tune, — 
The kingfisher that darts and glows 
Over the reeds of the lagoon — 

The flower-lured hummingbird that weaves 
Spirals more delicate than they— 
Sanderlings that on moonlit eves 
Over the wave-crest swoop and play — 
The crane that shores of sunset leaves 
For sunset skies of far away. 



42 



XV 
THE LANDSCAPES OF HIROSHIGE 

As merchantmen from Eastern isles 
In caravels of purple came, 
With freight that alien heart beguiles, — 
Incense, and cloths of woven flame, — 

So down the gulfs of elder time 
Thy glorious pinions bear to me 
Mad treasure from the unknown clime 
Of worlds beyond the Western Sea. 

Now in my bay the sails are furled. 
But I, who guess their native skies, 
Henceforth must roam that golden world, 
Where strange winds whisper and strange scents 
rise. 

Immortal Fuji's snowy crown — 

Wide seas with sky of amethyst — 

A street where torrents thunder down — 

Branches that toss against the mist — 

Smooth hills and hill-girt plains where run 

Streams through the rice fields steeped in 

heat — 
Pines gnarled above a sunken sun — 
Cold heights where cloud and mountain meet. 

Now visions enter to my breast 
That from thy passion won their birth 
When like a bride in radiance dressed 
Before thee glowed the summers of earth. 

43 



What magic gave thee to behold 
This fairness, secret from our sight, 
Where morning walks the world in gold, 
Or seas turn gray with coming night? 

For thee, as when the South Winds blow, 
Lands burst to bloom. On every shore 
Where beauty dwells thou didst bestow 
A perilous mortal beauty more. 

Twilight and morn on Biwa's breast — 
Harima's sands and lordly pines — 
White Hira-mountain's winter crest — 
The low red dusk round Yedo shrines — 
The moon beneath the Monkey Bridge — 
The Poisoned River's brooding gloom — 
Rose-dawn on some Tokaido ridge — 
Pale water-worlds of lotus bloom. 

Our toiling race is with the day 
Wearied, and restless with the night, — 
Unpausing, on its tombward way, 
For fear or wonder or delight, — 

Unwatchful, mid the somber things 
That mesh us in a vain employ, 
For peace that half of heaven brings, 
For beauty that is wholly joy. 

Lover for whom the world was wide! 
Down lighted pathways thou didst move — 
Where hills and seas and cities hide 
So much for weary men to love. 

44 



The mist of cherry trees in spring — 
Ships sleeping on same bright lagoon — 
A swallow's dusky sweeping wing — 
Steep Ishiyama's autumn moon — 
The changing marvels of faint rain — 
The foam that hides the torrent's stream— 
The eagle o'er the snowy plain— 
Sea-twilights haunted as a dream. 

Speaking, thou laidst thy brush aside, — 
"On a long journey I repair — 
Regions beyond the Western Tide — 
To view the wonderful landscapes there." 

Yet, at Adzuma, loosed from all 
Thy mortal bonds, made free to roam, 
Methinks thou couldst not break the thrall 
That held thee to thy human home. 

Surely no heaven could harbor thee, 
Nor other world of keener bliss, 
Who didst with such deep constancy 
Worship the loveliness of this. — 

Moon-flooded throngs in Yedo's streets- 
D awn-quickened travelers on their road — 
Lone ocean- fronting hill retreats — 
An Oiran's perilous-sweet abode— 
A mighty Buddha by the sea 
Where all the wondering pilgrims meet — 
Immortal Fuji, changelessly 
Watching the world around her feet. 



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EPILOGUE 

Bring forth, my friend, these faded sheets, 
Whose charm our labored utterance flies. 
Perhaps our later search repeats 
The groping of those scholars' eyes 

Who, ere the dawned Renaissant day, 
With dusked sight and doubtful hand, 
Bent o'er the pages of some gray 
Greek text they could not understand; 

Drawn by the sense that there concealed 
Lay key to spacious realms unknown; 
Held by the need that be revealed 
Forgotten worlds to light their own. 



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This edition of Twelve Japanese Painters, by 
Arthur Davison Ficke, is limited to 250 copies, of 
which 100 are for sale. Designed and printed by 
the Ralph Fletcher Seymour Company in Chicago, 
after which the type was distributed. March, 
MCMXIII. 



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